title: ERP evidence for human early visual sensitivity to co-linearity compared to co-circularity.
abstract: Our complex visual environment is constrained by natural geometric regularities, including spatiotemporal regularity, co-linearity and co-circularity. To investigate human visual processing associated with these regularities we directly compared the neural processes in encoding dynamic co-linearity and co-circularity using event-related potentials (ERPs). By recording ERPs to a target bar presented alone (no context) or in a dynamic sequence of bars following a co-linear or co-circular path, we observed earlier ERPs to targets embedded in co-linear sequence at early (66ms) and later stages (197ms) of post-target processing. In contrast, targets in co-circular sequence only modulated ERPs at later stages of processing. It is proposed that early visual processing may have adapted to efficiently process co-linearity to improve target identification, whereas sensitivity to co-circularity does not occur until later stages of processing. These results have significant impact for understanding brain-behaviour relationships when processing natural geometric regularities.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN6 7TS, UK. Electronic address: sh449@leicester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sophie S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Petra M J
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Pollux
authors.forename: Hettie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Roebuck
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Guo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Co-circularity; Co-linearity; ERP; Event-related potentials; FP; Prediction; TMS; event-related potential; fMRI; fixation point; functional magnetic resonance imaging; transcranial magnetic stimulation